{"id":2839,"date":"1982-01-01T15:54:00","date_gmt":"1982-01-01T15:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/?p=2839"},"modified":"2022-02-08T16:04:22","modified_gmt":"2022-02-08T16:04:22","slug":"parliamentary-premiere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/1982\/01\/01\/parliamentary-premiere\/","title":{"rendered":"Parliamentary Premiere"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Two hours before the 11 a.m. ‘curtain’, the long lines outside of Parliament waiting to pick up special invitations promised that the gala opening would be S.R.O. Backstage in the caucus rooms, the long-promised winds of change of a new Socialistled Parliament was even stirring in New Democracy’s chambers where the smoke-filled air and the deputies’ clamoring for more ashtrays attested to the passing of an administration which had waged a strong anti-smoking campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the first deputies to enter the chamber at 10:30 a.m., were the distinguished Mr. Theotokis who occupied a seat on the extreme right side of the room and some rather less dapper figures who accommodated themselves at the other end. As the opposition sections were filling up, PASOK members began to enter in dark suits, subdued neckties and well-groomed mustaches and beards to occupy the numerous banks of seats in the center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the galleries, Mrs. Papandreou and Mrs. Lazaris, wife of the new Minister of Coordination, seated themselves just across from the rostrum while in the diplomatic box which seats thirty-six, more than sixty ambassadors and other state representatives were pressed. Mr. Rallis, entering at 10:58, was the first deputy to be applauded and two minutes later, looking serious and controlled, Mr. Papandreou, without shaking hands, took the Prime Minister’s position on the rostrum from whence he searchingly gazed over the rows of his own deputies in that all-seeing way, reminiscent of a recent predecessor who had occupied the same chair for so many years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the presidential decrees were read, Archbishop Serafim standing before the Synod, began to give the blessing. Unfortunately, His Eminence became confused and started ruffling through the pages of the Holy Book without being able to find the correct passage. A moment of awkwardness was then resolved by another priest who began to sing. The blessing was followed by the oath, repeated phrase by phrase by the deputies with their right hands raised – except by the members of Mr. Florakis’ party, who only raised their hands. After the members of the Synod each greeted the Prime Minister and took their leave, a similar ceremony was performed with the Koran for the two Muslim deputies from Thrace. The opening session of Parliament was adjourned just before noon with the reading of other presidential decrees in demotic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another Opening<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A second premiere taking place on the same day as the opening of Parliament received almost equal publicity. Like the earlier one, Melina Mercouri was present, entrance was free, attendance more-or-less obligatory, the audience overwhelmingly male and it also occurred in a public building – in this case, Korydallos prison. The Minister of Culture, was making good her promise to bring entertainment to prisoners. Never-on-Sunday Melina’s choice had fallen on Papadoyeorgiou’s Next Sunday, a contemporary play presented by the Stoa Theater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike the earlier premiere, certainly, the audience at this presentation was, at first, silent and suspicious. Although some prisoners had helped erect the small, simple, cramped set at the end of a long prison corridor, placards had been hung pointing out that there were far greater priorities for prison life than entertainment. Prisoners complained that athletics were more important than theater. They grumbled that the heat had been turned on only that morning for the comfort of visitors and that a few cells had been freshly painted in the vicinity of the stage to make the atmosphere less bleak. Most of the men admitted that they had come, not out of any thespian enthusiasm, but to voice their problems to the journalists who were also present. Complaining of cramped quarters, little exercise, lack of work-shops, dirty blankets, open toilets, inhuman treatment in psychiatric wards, torture, suicides and inexplicable deaths, the prisoners still claimed that Korydallos prison was “luxury” compared to other Greek prisons like that on Corfu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a show of good will to the new government, however, prisoners had agreed to attend. One hundred sat on chairs, another hundred stood, twenty crouched down in front of the stage and many others hung over the two tiers of balconies above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tensions began to lessen when a prisoner, retorting to Minister of Justice Alexandris’ opening words about forty-year-old-problems not being solved in a day, asked “He asks time from us?”, a remark which brought some merriment to the audience. Minister Mercouri’s entrance drew applause, and a moment of silence in memory of those prisoners who have died in Korydallos was appreciated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The performance which followed is believed to be the first theatrical presentation ever shown in a Greek prison and the audience was soon absorbed. At its close, the audience displayed its enthusiasm and Mercouri said she would be back one day to perform herself “because you’re the best audience and I consider you all my friends.” Promising that state-managed troupes, as well as private companies, would play in prisons throughout the country, she also said that professional theater people would help organize prisoners to write and perform their own plays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The importance of the event, however, was symbolic. It meant a beginning to the new government’s policy to overhaul the country’s atrocious penal system. As he departed, Minister Alexandras assured the audience that all prisons, which up to now have helped to create and maintain a criminal environment, would be turned into institutions of reform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fleecing the Rich<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his first meeting with the press, the new Secretary General of the Greek Tourist Organization Panagopoulos, told newsmen in December that one of the main principles of the new government in regards to tourism will be to attract tourists of higher income levels. “It is the quality, not the quantity, of tourists which we are aiming at.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Setting aside this interesting ideological amendment to the social contract, it can be said that part of the government’s aim has already been achieved: quantity is already down. In 1980, there were about 13,000 tourists visiting the Acropolis on an average summer’s day. In 1981 there were about 7,000. There is no reason to worry that it will rise again in the near future. Back in the early 1960s, the old capitalistic slogan of EOT was “Let’s bring the tourists first and then lay down the framework for the tourist industry.” Over the next twenty years the tourists came, they increased, and then they decreased, and still the framework has yet to be laid down. If the Socialist slogan now is, “let’s fleece the rich tourist” rather than the former “let’s fleece rich and poor alike”, then the question is how to get rich tourists on the Acropolis. One idea, which the vast number of organizers at EOT have never thought of, is to separate the entrance to the Acropolis from the exit and thus solve the bottleneck of tourists that has existed there for a generation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an election year, the theater season always gets off to a slow start and many plays do not open until after the campaign, but by far the best attended premiere of the 1981-82 season was the opening of Parliament on the morning of November 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1357,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-town"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2839"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2840,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2839\/revisions\/2840"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}